


The Best Days of Our Lives

by shinealightonme



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Community: inception_kink, Homecoming, Multi, School Uniforms, Skipping Class, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 22:43:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Homecoming is just days away, and Eames is a terrible class president.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Days of Our Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Inception Kink Meme a while back; I'm finally owning up to writing this. After all, in the words of one wise anon, every fandom needs a high school AU.

"You look cheerful today," Ariadne informed him as he sat down next to her in Calculus.

"Can't think why that would be," Arthur muttered.

Ariadne wrapped an arm around his. "Seriously, are you okay? You look a tiny bit emotional. Did someone mess with your programming?"

He shoved her for that, just slightly. The last thing this day needed was for him to send his best friend to the nurse's with a broken leg. "Student Council meeting at lunch."

"Oh," she said, understanding at once. "Eames?"

"I don't get it!" Arthur fumed. "It's like he doesn't care, at all. The Homecoming game is on Friday and he hasn't done any work – unless you count flirting with the cheerleaders and half the football team as work."

"It is good for morale."

"He wouldn't even be class president if it weren't for his sexy accent. Meanwhile, I'm just the vice president, and I get stuck overseeing the preparations for the dance, the class floats, the – _what_?"

Arthur was distracted, mid-rant, by the expression on Ariadne's face – like she was fighting, as hard as she could, not to laugh.

"You think his accent is sexy?" she asked.

Arthur's thoughts screeched to a halt as he tried to remember exactly what words had come out of his mouth. "That's not what I said. You're twisting my words."

"Or maybe I'm _untwisting_ them for you."

He was about to tell her to stop smirking, but he didn't have to. The smile slid away from her face, leaving a look that, were Arthur more prone to melodrama, he would call "hopeless despair."

There was only one thing that put that look on her face these days. "Hey, Dom."

"Hey, Arthur, Ariadne," Dom greeted them both with a smile and slid into the seat next to Arthur. "How's it going?"

"Pretty good." Ariadne had recovered, or was faking it well enough. "Arthur was just telling me about his undying love for – "

"Badminton," Arthur finished.

Dom raised an eyebrow, but didn't ask.

Ariadne laughed to herself, and Arthur gave her the glare that he knew she knew meant _Freshman year. Robbie Fischer. I have evidence._

The bell rang, and the class settled down for a few minutes of productivity before Eames ruined it all, strolling in late. He wasn't even wearing his school tie. Arthur tried to project dignified outrage, but it was a hard thing to do sitting in a desk.

"Hello, Miles." No apologies, just arrogance; the essential Eames entrance.

"That's Doctor, to you," their calculus professor corrected. "You do realize you are late, Mr. Eames?"

"How terribly rude of me. It won't happen again. I've just been so busy with Homecoming."

"Yes, of course. Better late than never, I suppose. Have a seat."

"Actually, I've just come to collect Arthur," Eames said. "We have some things we need to finish before tomorrow. If that's all right?"

"Make sure you get the assignment from someone else. No excuses."

"Lucky," Dom whispered to Arthur, and Ariadne winked at him, but he would have much rather traded places with either one of them.

" _Now_ you want to work?" he asked, once he and Eames were outside.

"Of course not," Eames said. "If I'd wanted to work, I'd have gone to Calculus."

"Then why did you pull me out?"

"Call it a whim."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "I'm going back."

Eames caught him before he could take a step. "Come on, Arthur," he said. "Skip class for once in your life. It'll be fun."

"You know what will be fun, _not_ getting detention."

"We aren't going to get detention," Eames laughed. "We're seniors. It is our right – our _duty_ – to flaunt the rules. It gives the underclassmen something to look forward to. Or do you want the freshmen to all drop out of school?"

"Your logic is seriously flawed."

"Then it would be illogical to argue with me." Eames reached over and tugged Arthur's tie loose. "Now take this off. There's not much point to ditching if you're going to wear your uniform the whole time."

Arthur took off his tie, but he didn't smile about it.

-

"Sorry I abandoned you with Dom earlier," Arthur apologized to Ariadne.

They were lying on Ariadne's bed, supposedly to review the day's calculus lecture, but mostly Ariadne wanted to know what he and Eames had gotten up to. She hadn't been satisfied when he told her they went to Starbucks, and he had felt weirdly reluctant to tell her about the argument they'd had about Shakespeare. So he was changing the subject.

"No worries," she said, tapping the tip of her pencil against her notebook in a vaguely hostile manner. "It's like behavior therapy for the pathetic and lovesick."

"It's not that bad," he tried to reassure her. "Is it?"

"It wouldn't be, if Mal were just decent enough to be a bitch. But she's so _nice_. She made me a cake for my birthday. She made me a cake, and I want to steal her boyfriend."

"Maybe it's a plot to get you fat so Dom won't leave her for you," Arthur suggested.

"Like that would ever happen."

She looked so sad, and he had no idea how to make that better. They had been friends for years, but lately he kept finding these places where they were suddenly adrift, where her words would push him so far away he had no way to respond to them. Sometimes, boys were involved, sometimes it was about her mother; more and more often, it was some indefinable worries about school and the future.

Sometimes, he wanted to tell her things, and found that same frightening gap, with no idea whether he'd built it or she had.

"Screw him," Arthur hugged Ariadne and hoped for the best.

-

Eames pulled Arthur out of Economics the next day, World Lit the day after that. By the fourth time it happened, Arthur hardly complained about the interruption in his schedule, especially not since they were, actually, getting some work done for Homecoming.

What he did complain about was Eames' recklessness.

"Could you be a little more careful?" Arthur demanded. "You're getting paint everywhere _except_ the sign."

Eames looked down at his paint spattered shirt and shrugged. "It'll wash off."

"It won't."

"It won't?"

"No."

"Well, better strip down, then." Eames started to undo his buttons. "You should, too. Just to be safe."

"Are you crazy?"

"What's the matter?" Eames asked. "You've got an undershirt, haven't you?"

Arthur did, and Eames had a smirk on his face that dared Arthur to chicken out. He wasn't going to back down, not when Eames' shirt was already half off.

Eames continued to smirk as Arthur fumbled with his first few buttons. "Really, darling, you mustn't be so uptight, or your date is going to be in for a disappointing Homecoming."

Arthur thought of protesting that he wasn't uptight, but figured that would only make him seem worse. "Trust me, Eames, we don't need any help from you to have a good time."

"Oh, so you do have a date? I've been worried. Who is the brave soul?"

"Ariadne."

"Of course; you two do make a cute couple," Eames said. "Very...most likely to succeed." He made it sound far dirtier than Arthur would have thought possible.

Arthur felt himself blush, despite his best attempts not to; and the smirk on Eames face as he noticed Arthur's embarrassment only made Arthur blush more. "We aren't like that."

"Well, you never know." Eames clapped him on the shoulder. "Homecoming magic, and all that."

-

Arthur was pretty sure that the only magic in Homecoming was that they actually managed to pull it off. The Homecoming game, the parade, the announcement of the king and queen...it was all behind them now, with only a few hours of dancing and music to get through before Arthur could put the whole nightmare behind him.

He let himself relax and focused on having a good time. He and Ariadne navigated the crowded room to find their friends, stopping several times to chat and check out how strange everyone looked, dressed up to the nines.

Ariadne looked fantastic, and everyone said so, which pleased Arthur. With every compliment, she smiled brighter, and looked like she wasn't thinking about how she came with her guy friend and not the guy of her dreams. The happy buzz lasted until the first slow song of the evening, when Ariadne looked a little lost. Arthur grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the dance floor. She laughed, but followed him.

On the second slow song, Arthur didn't get a chance. Robbie Fischer swooped in out of nowhere and asked Ariadne to join him.

"You're not going to get re-infatuated with him, are you?" Arthur asked subtly, which in that room meant practically yelling into her ear.

"I'm just satisfying my inner freshman's fantasy," Ariadne replied. "Let a girl have some fun."

"By all means," Arthur waved her off, but then found himself feeling a bit lost. It seemed like everyone had paired off while he wasn't looking, and now he was sitting alone at an empty table.

Well, not for long.

"Now, when I said you should be less uptight, I didn't mean you should go giving your girlfriend away to the first man who asked."

Arthur thought about laughing, and he thought about kicking Eames' chair out from under him. He compromised and shook his head. "She's not my girlfriend."

"So you said. If that's the case, I suppose she wouldn't mind." Eames stood and offered Arthur his hand with a flourish. "May I have this dance?"

"You have got to be kidding me."

"That's not a proper answer."

Arthur thought about Homecoming magic, and a warm hand pulling his tie loose, and all the things he didn't know how to say, and an accent that was, after all, incredibly sexy.

He took Eames' hand.


End file.
